WA slush fund file maybe empty all along

DOCUMENTS allegedly sent by Prime Minister Julia Gillard to Western Australia's Commissioner for Corporate Affairs 20 years ago relating to the AWU affair may never have been archived by the State Records Office (SRO).

The AWU Workplace Reform Association, which has been revealed as a union slush fund, was initially deemed ineligible to be incorporated as an association but Ms Gillard wrote to the commissioner asking for the decision to be reversed.

A transcript of an internal Slater & Gordon inquiry, released on Thursday, revealed Ms Gillard argued to the WA corporate affairs commission that the association, established by her then boyfriend Bruce Wilson and another AWU official Ralph Blewitt, was eligible to be registered.

Deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop has repeatedly quizzed Ms Gillard in parliament this week about whether she wrote to the commissioner, with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott later calling for a judicial inquiry into the affair after another fiery parliamentary showdown.

While recent reports have questioned how the documents could have vanished, a WA government spokesman said it was not unusual for detailed paperwork for the state's many associations to not be archived at the SRO.

"The SRO advises that the file in question was located but did not have any contents," the spokesman said.

"The file itself shows no sign of ever having held any contents, which is not a unique situation, and appears unused, according to the SRO."

No government agency had borrowed the file since it was transferred in 1999, he said.

On Sunday, WA Premier Colin Barnett said he would seek an explanation from the SRO about what had or may have happened to the documents if he received a formal complaint.

And while Victorian police have started interviewing key witnesses into the fraud, WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan refuses to be drawn on the matter.

"The only thing I am prepared to say about this is that the Victoria Police are doing some work around this, and that is an investigation that is currently live," Mr O'Callaghan told Fairfax Radio.

"Nationally, it is an operational matter and Victoria Police are investigating it and that is all I can tell you."